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exists independently only of all other creatures, but not of God its Creator, by whom those creatures live, even when they sin or act against Him. If, for instance, a creature breathe; its power to perform that action is beyond the aid of all other creatures, and arises independently of them. And so it may be said concerning the rest of its functions, which discover or exercise the principle of animal life.

There is also a life, which consists in motion, but which is not obvious to the animal sense. The life of man's immortal and immaterial part acts and moves, not from the vibratory motions of matter, but by a principle to which matter has no relation, and to which matter itself, being passive and inert, is and must be subservient. The collision of two stones might as soon inspire thein with thought, as the vibra tion of the nerves, being mere material motion, could constitute the intellect of man, which in a thousand cases, has and can have no sort of relation to the motion of matter. Those, who propagate this notion, are only supporting the cause of materialism or panikeism; for, when once a rule is established, that matter produces thought; it is no very distant nor difficult transition to urge, that matter itself, as the author of thought, must therefore be God, and consequently so much the source of all intellection, that there can be no ideas with詈 out it. Hence thought is nothing but matter acting upon itself, and of consequence the universal harmony and arrangement of things appears a most lucky and fortuitous jumble of 、t matter in atoms! Here atheism comes in with a full tide, and offers to sweep away religion, revelation, and even morality itself, into the ocean of anarchy and universal infidelity. Those pretended reasoners, therefore, who promote such principles, either see not the mischievous and preposterous result of them; or, if they do see them, are very little entitled, either by their heads or their hearts, to the respect and attention of mankind.*

*We have had several attempts of late to introduce the fatality of the Stoics, and the absolute necessity of all things, without reference to the will or providence of God, whicli itself, according to some, seems tied down to this all-ruling fate, after the representation of the antient heathens.

This is, to all intents and purposes, mere materialism: And the arguments, which are brought to prove that sort of natural necessity, do conclude in materialism.

If matter existed before mind, those philosophers are undoubtedly right, who raise all the actions of mind out of matter, in which case there is no supreme intellectual Being; and then the creed of Spinoza (following some antient heathens) that " God is all things," ́must in consequence be received. Upon this plan, it will be right to allow, that, in all respects, the principle called the soul is wholly

The life of spirits, not only distinct but from heterogeneous matter, is exercised in memory, will, understanding, reasoning &c. and moves by these faculties, as the body obtains sensible motion by its members. When this spiritual

modified and governed, entirely acts and thinks, according to the disposal or organization of the body. The next step after this is, when the body perishes, the soul ceases to be. And here we may look round us, and see religion and revelation swallowed up in the vortex of infidelity and atheism.

But if mind existed before matter, or, in other words, if God existed before gross substance, and is in his own nature different from it; then, ail forms of being, whether sensible or intelligible, are copies of those ideas which pre-existed in his mind; or, they were created without design. Those ideas also must have been essentially mental, because they existed before the sensible forms, and are not the objects of sense in any respect. It follows, then, that his ideas (speaking with humble reverence) were prior to the modifications of matter, and that those modifications exist agreeable to the ideas; otherwise, there is no such being as God, considering him as pure Spirit, nor any such arrangement, as we understand by his providence.

If this last conclusion be impossible and absurd (as may well be believed) God, as an infinite and eternal Spirit, is the mental cause of all material existence, and the source of intellection in all spiritual being. Whatever exists, or acts in its existence, received its substance and all its powers entirely from him.

That organization of body is not necessary to the acts of the mind, is evident from the angels and the spirits of just men made perfect, who see and enjoy felicity and knowledge more purely and freely without body, than we can, who remain in the flesh. This we must believe, indeed, upon the authority of the Scriptures; or, if we will not believe them, we may commence Sadducees, and say, there is neither angel nor spirit, who, if they exist at all, must necessarily exist more perfectly and sublimely in thought and power, than creatures surrounded with clay.

If mere organization of body were sufficient to work up thought, or to modify it into reason and wisdom; the Ouran-Outang would have as good a chance to comprehend or cogitate, as the being called human. M. Buffon says, that "all the parts of the Ouran-Outang's head, limbs, and body, external and internal, are so perfectly similar to the human, that we cannot collate them together, without being amazed at a conformation so parallel, and at an organization so exactly the same, though not resulting to the same effects. The tongue, for example, and all the organs of speech, are the same in both; and yet the Ouran-Qutang does not speak: The brain is absolutely the same in texture, disposition, and proportion; and yet he does not think: An evident proof this (continues he) that mere matter alone, though perfectly organized, cannot produce thought, nor speech the index of thought, unless it be animated with a superior principle."- -One is almost tempted to think, that the similarity between this brute and human nature was

principle is removed, the body becomes torpid and inactive: When this principle is only suspended, as in trances or in bodies half-drowned, there is no action in the outward machine, though all the nerves remain, and no alterations ap

created, on purpose to shew us, that the soul is a principle independent of matter, and that we do not think and reason because we have bodies, but because (in that nearer approach to the image of God) we have immortal and immaterial souls.

If the excellency of the mental faculty depended on corporeal organization; then the most beautiful, strong, and well-proportioned bodies must think, and reason, and understand, with the greatest force, perspicuity, and wisdom. But nothing needs to be added to refute this proposition.

It is one thing to say, that the soul receives many of its ideas through the medium of the senses; and quite another to affirm, that the senses generate those ideas. Sense and sensible objects may (as has been well expressed) be " a medium to awaken the dormant energies of man's understanding; yet those energies themselves are no more contained in sense, than the explosion of a cannon in the spark which gave it fire." The mind of man, simply considered as mind, must be similar to that of angels or disembodied spirits; as their mind is (so far as finite can respect infinite) to the mind of God. There must exist something of congeniality in the whole spiritual world; or there could be no communication between human and angelic spirits, or between those and God.

This congeniality or identity of ideas, between human and superior spirits, seems to demonstrate of itself, that ideas are not dependent upon or formed by matter; because, if they were, pure spirits could not think at all. Nor could the identity of ideas subsist between men, and angels, and God; if the origin of the human idea was placed in sensation, and the origin of pure spirits in absolute intellection, which are properties entirely discrepant and heterogeneous. And if heterogeneous, how can matter produce what is so unlike itself, as mind is?

Carrying our ideas still higher, we may make this principle confute itself. For, if matter generate idea; it will follow, that there is no idea without matter: And, if there be no idea without matter, then, either God is matter, or depends upon matter for his ideas, which will amount to nearly the same thing, and is downright Pantheism.

Further; it seems unavoidable, that all, which begins with matter, must end with matter; because no effect can rise above its cause: And from hence likewise it will follow, that all that philoso phy (as 'tis called) which makes gross substance the primum mobile and the principle of thought, tends only to establish the blind fate of the heathens, or direct materialism.

But, among other proofs, that the mind of man did not originate from matter, it doth not end there, but seeks for itself a more perfect

+ See a learned and elegant discussion of this subject in HARRIS's Hermes. Book iii. chap. 4.

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in the material frame. But let the spirit be restored, the body revives, and proves itself animated, or endued with something far above itself, by those actions which correspond with its frame. Shall we say then, that this mass, which pre

and exalted good. The whole world cannot fill the soul, nor satisfy it; and the spirit of a man can find no true rest or complacency but in an intellectual good. The good, which is GOODNESS ITSELF, and fills all things, can only fill that " aching void," which every man, by the corruption of his nature, feels within him.

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Undoubtedly, respecting the material substances about us, we form our ideas of them through the medium of matter. But matter doth not farm those ideas; for, if it could, the eye would see, and the organs of sense would continue to perceive, when the spirit is departed. It is the spirit, which employs those organs, as instruments, to range in the world of matter, and by the application of them determines upon the quality or quantity of substances, very different from itself. God has given us this constitution, and wonderfully enables us to perceive it. Indeed, it seems a greater wonder, that matter actuated by mind should seem almost to investigate matter, and so rise above it, than that mere mind should comprehend matter, as it undoubtedly must, if there are such beings as angels and the spirits of just men made perfect. Our spirits can work upon matter, can frame ideas, of it or according to it, and through the intervention of matter can receive ideas. But matter is only the medium (as we said before) not the cause. If a man invent a science, the origin of the idea is intrinscally intellectual. The spirit combines the material forms, and discovers conclusions, which, however they may exist in the matter, matter itself could not have discovered. Geometry, for instance, respects material proportions; and these proportions exist in the substance of matter: But was it the eye, or the hand, or the ear, of Euclid; was it his mind, or his body, which traced them out? His body, surely, was but the machine of his mind, and acted upon matter by its direction

If the soul hath no ideas but what it derives from the body; then it is not an ens distinct from the body, but a co-essential substance with it, though rarified to the utmost degree of exility. Hence, it seems perishable with body; or, if it could exist without it, yet having no body to act with it, it can have no ideas, but must lose the very activity of its being, and sink into an inertness, which contradicts every notion of spirit. Of such consequence is the opinion, which renders the soul dependent upon matter both in esse et in operari, that it directly removes the basis of the immortality as well as immateriality of all spirit, and puts men, nay,God himself, upon a level with the beasts that perish.

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When we ascend to forms purely intellectual, we seem to act as truly spiritual beings, and leave matter quite out of sight. We think, without the intervention of our animal senses, upon many subjects, and upon some of which those senses could have no exercise. Our corporal frame, for instance, has nothing to do with religion, but to be governed according to its dictates: It has no par

sently corrupts without that other principle, is the life or mo tion of that principle? Or, rather, that this immaterial part, which can leave the body without taking away one atom of its substance, is the life, which thinks in that body, and the

ticular relation, as a lump of matter, to its spiritual concerns, and can afford us no ideas, no nor yet sensation concerning them. It may be acted upon, and assuredly is, in this momentous case; but it doth not and cannot act from itself. See John iv. 24.

Upon the ground of the Christian religion, this Epicurian business of the potency of matter must presently fall into atoms. Here we find, that there is no activity but in spirit; and that this activity originates from the supreme Spirit, is communicated by him to every thing which acts, and is limited by him in the mode and degree of action. Matter is all obedience here; and even spirits themselves are active, only through the impulse of his activity. As volitions, or comprehensions, are as much mental acts, as local motion is an act of the body'; so these are determined, as well as that, by the motion of the Supreme mind: Otherwise, there would be a principle of self-determination in the creatures, which would render them independent of his direction. In other words, they would, in that case, be no longer creatures: And so there would be an utter end of all providence in the government of nature, and of all grace in the revelation of God. There would be no certainty in any thing, and consequently no order; for order is certainty, wearing only another name. But if we view God's providence in the government of things, carried on with his grace in the salvation of his people; we may see a beautiful arrangement in the whole disposition of the intellectual and natural world, and a strength in the whole fabric, which renders it indemolishable. Yet there could be no arrangement of a whole, without a previous disposition of all the parts. How God influences the will of spirits, we cannot define; nor can we define the mode of God's action in any thing: But we are sure, as his word can teach us, that it is He who doth make them willing, and that they will and do, according to his power. We are also sure, that he effects this disposition in our souls, sometimes with, and sometimes without, the intervention of matter; and that, therefore, matter is not absolutely necessary to his operation. Meaner and worse agents than this can affect the mind, and give it inclinations, which it had not of itself. The temptations of the devil are not always by material objects, but remote from them, and often affect only spiritual concerns. From these short hints, we may conclude that God is the soverein as ent, that he acts according to his providence and grace, and that both matter and spirit are acted upon by him.

That God acts by necessity, in the usual sense of that term, it seems as impious to affirm, as it is above us to inquire. If we say, he is his own necessity; we can only mean, that he has no necessity out of himself: And how far we can pretend to determine what that self-necessity in the Godhead is, should be left for a very modest consideration. Certainly, he is his own law in this respect: And

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